An example of a letter written by a member of the teaching staff to the head of school - trying to persuade the head of school/principal to give the students extra recess time each day. The letter example gives 3 reasons, cites real evidence, and uses persuasive (emotive) language. There are 7 questions about the letter for the students to work through to check for understanding and think about the language being used and how it has been carefully organised.

A simple narrative writing starter about a haunted house. Students edit/fill in the gaps to bring the story to life and make it their own! This is a great way to practice narrative/creative writing while learning/reinforcing parts of speech/similes.

I made the link between boxing and writing. When trying to persuade we need to not only put forward our strongest 2-3 arguments (throw our strongest 2-3 punches), we also need to defend ourselves against any opponent's argument (block) and then say why it isn't a good enough reason against our argument (counter punch). This simple plan really helped my students work out what exactly they were arguing for and against and how to formulate a counter argument. The boxing analogy - which we acted out - really helped them understand what a counter-argument actually was. I had my class of 8 year old kids in Japan write a persuasive argument in favour of a chosen energy source with a counter argument. This was not an easy task - the fact they all managed to achieve the end goal was in large part to the solid foundations this plan gave them.

A simple website research/inquiring challenge - students use the Ducksters website to help answer the questions. First I introduced the topic of the Industrial Revolution (Our unit of study is on Technology so I felt this is an era of history that needs to be taught as it changed our World). I had my class (Grade 3) do this using one Chrome book between 2 but it would work just as well as an individual research activity. The questions were written to not only improve reading skills, but also encourage some deeper thinking of the impact of this significant era in history.

Children used the Ducksters website page about the life of Helen Keller to complete a specially-made informational poster about her life. The activity challenged their research/inquiring skills while helping them to learn all about this remarkable woman.

Eight writing genre headers to display around the classroom underneath an example of each piece of student work. Below is a simple example of each in a few sentences based on a stretch my class learned in their P.E class. The children sorted the short pieces of writing by pairing them with each of the 8 writing genres. This was a great activity to get them to think about the different writing genres we will be working on this year and how each is different.

Powerpoint Presentation on the benefits of being vegetarian. This thorough account is a good way to show the class persuasive arguing/create debate and discussion, etc.

This persuasive writing piece models for students how to lay out a simple persuasive argument about something they all have an opinion on - recess/play! After the reading are some questions to check for understanding about the arguments made and the layout used by the writer. Finally, it gives the opportunity for students to express their own opinion and give reasons for their choice. I used this soon after introducing persuasive writing to my class. After they returned late from recess we had a class discussion about whether extending recess was a good or bad idea. I think introduced the idea of persuasion before giving them this example of a piece of persuasive writing. It was interesting to see if they came up with the same/different arguments I made in my written argument for having extended recess.

My Grade 3 children love checking each other's writing using this 'detective checker chart'. They have a chart each (laminated) and a marker pen. When checking a classmate's writing they check boxes whenever they find a good piece of writing (e.g. a correctly written sentence) or something that needs improvement (e.g. an incorrectly used apostrophe). They draw a small respective smiley/straight face in pencil on the piece of writing so it is clear where the great writing/mistake was found. I challenge them to try and find 6 positives and 6 needs improvements to earn themselves a class point for each.

A great activity to have children practice listening and using rhyme and rhythm in poems. This was used as an activity during a magic-themed day. It is also an ideal activity during Halloween. The challenge of making a powerful potion combined with using ingredients such a mice and spiders' legs really engaged my G2 and G4 classes. Students need to use the words given to make the poem rhyme (so need to really read and sound out each word). They also need to think by creating their own magic word, choosing the quantity of ingredients, and ensuring one of the lines has 'rhythm' by writing a sentence that keeps with the rhythm of the poem. This activity really challenged my classes without being too difficult.

Short and sweet intro to fairy tales - excellent to use to introduce the topic. Have children guess the name of the 5 fairy tales before answers revealed. Good to start discussions about fairy tales - especially when teaching children from overseas who often have their own versions of or endings to famous fairy tales such as Little Red Riding Hood.